


Towards the Good Night

by Cirrocumulus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Characters will be added as they appear - Freeform, F/M, Kaneki Ken writes a bucket list, Multi, Other, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 04:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirrocumulus/pseuds/Cirrocumulus
Summary: When he walks in on the Reaper writing a note, he finds a list as empty as his soul.Encouraged to write his own, he soon comes up with a grand plan to earn the love he so desperately yearns for.Surely, if he follows this, he can go out with a bang instead of a whimper.1. Eat one more burger.2. Write a book.3. Give him a funeral.4. Make her love me.5. Die in style.





	Towards the Good Night

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, I'm Cirro! I hope you enjoy my writing style. =)  
> If any of you are interested in reading not only fanfiction, but Tokyo Ghoul meta posts you can find me on tumblr under:  
> http://cirrocumulus-cloud.tumblr.com/

 

**It has been a day since he passed.**

But a day has not many hours and there are only so many seconds in a minute that it makes his brain retract into the deepest, darkest pits of his mind. Where the tar is hot and the feathers can only give an impression of wings. Like a criminal he begins to writhe, sweat dropping onto his cheeks like cold tears that would like to become rivers but only fill the cracks between the heartbreak.

And there is something that sounds like futility that weaves his dreams now, paints them bloody gold like a story of an old bound book where the pages still have a lingering scent too fresh to forget. He feels that tingling sensation in the back of his throat, as though he has bit his own tongue but he did not, he simply taught it not to speak. So it doesn’t cry out when he sleeps, leaves his murmurs unheard, constricts his thoughts into eerie shadow figures that poke his eyes out because all he sees is black-

 And then he’s awake in the darkness of his very own existence, with black walls and black floors and a black image on a black canvas, where the paint is dry and flakes off because he has forgotten to be himself yet again. Combs through tresses that don’t remember their own colour so they, too, marry the lack of light. If there is one comfort to find in this unification of his unsettling fears being made in his lack of a womb, it is the knowledge that he is alone. And that is good because the eyes of those still alive would seem hollow and he’s hollow enough to fill his own body twice.

So he rises like an old man, feels bones creak as though they would like to imitate floorboards and it has him afraid of waking another soul. But when he leaves the room, shuts the door like it can keep his demons locked away, he sees not another single walking, talking being. And it’s only then that he realises he is talking to himself, fighting against the snake around his throat in a battle that he cannot win, only lose. It tells him of selfish needs and selfish actions, has him draw his attention to the kitchen so he can grab coffee for himself and no one else. Then it whispers of his pain, his crumbling reality that falls apart like broken bones, like crushed bodies underneath skyscrapers because he has never stared onto a sky so blue that it forgot the clouds.

And no one dares to repaint that canvas of a remembered yesterday, not even then when his stare finds hold on the body of a silent artist sitting at an empty kitchen table where the chairs build an audience of zero. When the man looks up his eyes light up in anger, light up in rejection of the self and everything around him.

Then focus on his form like he’s a blotch of ink dropped onto filthy ground and somehow, he is. Falls into his body like a crumpled sketch of a human being and drags his sunken form across the room as though the entire world is resting on his shoulders. What he gets in return is nothing more than a grimace that implies sharp teeth without ever showing them.

And Urie does not have to mutter a single word in order to show his disdain, offset simply by the fear that freezes his blood until he resembles a stone that the ocean cannot carry away. So Urie stays, does not rise, even as he makes his way towards the kitchen counter, turning on the light on the way there - because the shadows that  they cast are too huge to deal with and the light from the world outside is way too faint to show comfort.

His heart sinks deeper into his soul, stays there, because the empty cups that once held the only beverage he can enjoy are still there in the sink, empty but with funny words on them that have the man at his back roll his eyes each time he sees them. Now he doesn’t even bother to give them a look.

And that is the reality of the situation, because that cup is still there, the coffee residue clinging to the bottom in a way that is natural, but seems so agonisingly hilarious all of a sudden; like it means something to find old, bitter remains.

_“Sasaki.”_

It is the only word Urie mumbles, lost in the motion of gulping down coffee and emotions alike, so faint it might as well have not been said at all.

And Kaneki finds his limbs give out, knocks over the cups with red-veined fingers. He doesn’t bother to read the letters on them, knows them by heart, puts his pinkie into the black residue and winces at the ugly feeling that it invokes, like tar on flesh but cold instead of hot.

The silence is thick within the room, a mixture of bile and bite in his mouth and he grabs his own neck to hang his words. They die like the pathetic things they are and so he does not ask whether his roommate wants another mug, he simply pours one for himself.

Watches as steam rolls over the edge of the ceramic surface, lifts it up to his face and inhales the bittersweet scent because even bad coffee is better than the lingering remains of blood and memories alike. And gulping down bile is better with a beverage, anyhow.

The cup loses its contents like Urie does his patience and it is only when both are at their half point that Kaneki bothers to settle down, far away from his companion. The empty chairs, those still stare like watchful vessels without a soul to occupy them. And so it is silent in the room, like each word has been murdered before being born.

The sipping motion of drinking something that fills him with warmth should feel like a blessing, but it curses the rest of sleep in his eyes instead. Until he is awake, fully now, and cannot turn the man in front of him into a Fata Morgana weaved from hazy thoughts. The dreamlike state is gone, pulverized and Urie does not bother to draw him another chalkboard painting.

Instead, his midnight companion begins to rise from his chair only to fall back down, a ragdoll of a body with stitches for a mouth and no sun to be found. So he doesn’t speak his thoughts despite his lips tingling with information, bitter with no way to sugar-coat the truth that is keeping him up even now.

Somehow, Kaneki still hears the name that should die in this unbound silence already.

“Shirazu...”

Somehow, Kaneki begins to feel the cobra constrict his mind again, binding him to his chair with chains.

“...he’s...gone”, Urie finishes, draws a line under a sentence that hasn’t even properly started yet.

“Gone”, comes Kaneki’s muffled reply; a response of an autopilot, connecting memories to a banished persona.

A bite resounds, because Urie doesn’t bark. The teeth clatter together akin to broken porcelain. “Akira called, said the bodies were taken.”

There’s emotion on Kaneki’s face now, speaking volumes in a kitchen too stuffy to clearly send out sounds. It makes him put his hands to his ears, mouth somewhere between open and closed. Then he touches his chin in thought. “...and?”

And Urie feels his blood boil. And Urie wants to rip him apart. And Urie wants to cry. And Urie wants to shout.

And Urie does none of these things.

_And Urie leaves._

So alone, he remains, with questions in his mind that no one would dare offer him an answer to. There is just one more empty cup in the room, now, one with residue still fresh enough to mimic a morning coffee. Kaneki begins to clutch his own beverage like a bedtime story, those where the monsters dare to reach above the bed.

A door closes with the sound of a finished book too young to leave behind dust. But at least Kaneki can crumble without anyone witnessing, which is a comfort that even coffee cannot bring him. Feeling alone is fine, feeling lonely even better. And so he gulps down the last of his midnight drink, rises, grabs both cups and stumbles towards the sink to wash it all clean.

The rinsing motion that follows is a steady rhythm that should calm his heartbeat, but doesn’t. But at least the water doesn’t clog up the sink; at least he can see his murky reflection turn into nothing but a downward spiral.

And like a downward spiral he goes; sets the mugs aside to dry while he still feels like wet paint. His spiralling motion has him rush back into his room to put a fresh shirt on backwards, after which red fingers close the buttons of a new pair of pants. It doesn’t take Kaneki long to get ready, but it feels like an eternity until he has found his way out of the apartment; because there is something so final about closing the door and turning away. Especially when the entire floor weeps with the cries of people he doesn’t dare lend an ear to.

So Kaneki goes, like a ghost. He steps in time with each sob so no one will be the wiser, yet it still takes him more strength than he can muster to reach the place where emotions die together with ghouls. And the CCG becomes a heaven for a sinner like him. Kaneki opens doors that have witnessed too many hollow people step inside, walks through gates that should scream him into a seed but somehow the world lets him bloom instead. When he looks at his arms he sees spider lilies that dare to wrap a web around his head and he feels caught, but moves on anyway - until he finds himself standing before a room that belongs to someone who he failed to be.

_A father figure._

Kaneki twists the door handle and his organs and steps inside without a single knock. And luck has it that the man with white hair and a gaze that is colder than the north pole just happens to sit in his chair, glasses askew as though winter has approached with fast steps. It feels like ice inside, pierces Kaneki’s ribcage but hurts his eyes. Until he cannot see in the dimly lit room, so he lets himself fall into a chair in front of the man they call Reaper.

Arima looks up, then, and lets a pencil fall that has not put a single word to paper yet.

Then he sighs, quietly, unheard, but yet loud enough to shatter the breathless silence.

“...I take it you cannot sleep either, Sasaki?”

Kaneki finds no muscle in his body to work, so he doesn’t nod, he simply lets his head fall. The man in front of him begins to juggle his pencil like the keys to a kingdom, until the utensil is finally handed to him instead. When Kaneki finds the strength to look up Arima is watching like a hawk, with a face shrouded in shadows. But the pencil still lays there, a worm desperate to go back to the earth it came from.

So Ken picks it up, holds it between fingers that look like talons. Maybe if he follows the Reaper’s will he can leave this room without ending up as the mouse whose eyes get gouged out.

“Not everyone had a will”, Arima begins to mutter. “Most did, but some...I suppose some thought they were immortal.”

There’s a grin there, hidden behind a gaze full of fog. Arima has no mist in his eyes, cries not even silent tears. But the grin, that one stays, frozen in time. It has Kaneki return it, the grimace uneasy, like a mask that does not fit on his face.

“Maybe some are”, he decides to reply, jokes with the haphazard motion of a hand touching a chin. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

“I suppose it would give them enough time to partake in every activity there is to enjoy in life.” Arima murmurs, now, voice barely above a whisper, as though he is debating with himself, not the man in front of him. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Ken begins to reminisce, then, eyes trained on the empty paper in front of his mentor.  Not empty, he realises, now that he truly watches - just full of erased ideas. “Maybe a freshly brewed coffee would be good enough.”

There’s confusion offset by wonder suddenly, a bright light that vanishes as fast as it came and wraps the Reaper into a cowl of winter once more. “...maybe.”

 

_Arima says no more after that._

**Maybe he said too much already.**


End file.
